Nov 10 2000
From The Space Library
NASA's Stardust spacecraft entered safe mode after a stream of high-energy protons emanating from a solar flare hit the craft. Stardust, on a mission to return samples of a comet, had been 130 million miles (210 million kilometers) from the Sun, traveling at about 12,000 miles (19,000 kilometers) per hour, when the solar flare erupted on 9 November. The solar wind had brought the stream of protons into contact with the craft hours later, in the middle of the night, confirming that NASA engineers and scientists monitoring the situation had reason to feel concerned.
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